By Mark Seall •
April 3, 2008
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Putting pen to paper for Bus Transportation Week I began to make a few notes about bus travel in Switzerland – the country that I usually cover on EcoWorldly. My notes read: reliable, clean, efficient.
Not much of a story there.
When there is not much happening in Switzerland and I need to file an EcoWorldly post, I usually look at wider Europe. My notes on bus travel in other nations around Europe read: mostly reliable, mostly clean, mostly efficient.
Still not much to write home about.
And then I read Pem Charnley’s article about bus transportation in Britain, which struck much more of a chord. Having recently written here about the woeful state of British rail transportation, I thought it might be appropriate to continue Pem’s theme and recount my experience of bus travel when I returned to our sunny island for a brief visit recently.
The story starts in the West Midlands with a Saturday shopping trip from my residence in Warwick to the nearby town of Royal Leamington Spa. As before, I shall evaluate the transport infrastructure of the 4th richest nation in the world using some carefully chosen criteria.
By Pem Charnley •
March 30, 2008
The wind howls, the setting some kind of Arctic wind tunnel. Sure, there’s a waiting room over there, but it’s deserted. And no wonder. The strip lighting such an intense hue that it dazzles – a fluorescent goldfish bowl that makes the squall preferable.
There’s only a few people here. A mum yells at her kids, then tells her friend about her recent sex life, the wind carrying her conquests to the damp corners of the platform and anyone unfortunate enough to have hearing as functional as her genitals.
To use the bus is not a green option, it’s the last ditch attempt of the stranded.
By Mark Seall •
March 11, 2008
How was your journey to work this morning?
Several weeks ago, EcoWorldly investigated public transport options around the world in a series of articles which concluded that public transport can be a pleasant, effective and extremely viable form of transportation.
During the week we looked at many positives, from bus travel in South Korea, to Rail Travel in Europe and even Camel Transport in the desert.
But what of the negative aspects of public transport? These aspects are becoming increasingly important, since despite the best efforts of governments and environmental groups, motorists will not give up the car unless viable alternatives exist.
Authors, Anthony Miall and Davil Milsted, wrote in The Xenophobes Guide To The English, “The English take an almost masochistic pride in their public transport system, a system which even a third world country would consider as a disgrace.” With this in mind, and having previously had the opportunity to sample public transport around the world from the Railways of India, Thailand and China, to the Metro of Mexico City, the River Boats of Dubai and the cross country buses of Guatemala - not to mention the super efficient railways where I live in Switzerland - I decided to sample the railways of my native Britain once again to see how they compare against the rest of the world, and more importantly, against the car.
By Gavin Hudson •
February 2, 2008
While Mark’s Green Team blazes its way through Europe by high-speed rail, I start my public transportation journey through South Korea in a slightly more humble place: in front of a dried squid.
The squid is between a pair of tongs, which an elderly Korean woman holds over an indoor propane stove. As the squid crisps, I look around. I’m standing in front of one of the dozens of shops and small restaurants lining the spacious hallway of the main bus terminal of Gangneung, a city on the Sea of Japan, where my trip begins.
Already, we’ve come the first advantage of car-free travel: outside of a car, you see things that you probably would never see inside a car. BBQ squid, for example.
By Pem Charnley •
January 30, 2008
Carbon emissions from transport, as a contributing factor to climate change, is a hugely complex subject. Yet we must continue to address it, look for solutions, if we are ever to tackle global warming.
Transport is too vast a topic to discuss as a whole. Instead, I want to just look at our behaviour on the roads. Can it ever be possible to curb this behaviour when we seemingly continue to believe that the car is the only way forward?
By Heidi Strebel •
September 10, 2007
A wind of change is blowing through the world of rugby. A green wind.
The 2007 Rugby World Cup, the 3rd largest sports event in the world with an estimated 2.5 million spectators from around the world, is being held in France from September 7 to October 20. The organizers, including a special rugby committee, a government agency and the French Rugby Federation, have vowed to make the event tangibly eco-friendly, and number
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